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Context and Issues

Crops are sujected to multiple attacks, simultaneous or in succession, during their life cycle. These multiple infections are due to pathogen complexes, of variable composition in time and space, involving species or pathotypes differing by their ecological characteristics and requirements, and influenced by cropping systems. Multiple infections therefore affect directly crop yield and quality.
Nevertheless, current crop protection methods are often focused on a single pathogen or pest, and neglect multiple infections. The sustainable control of multi-infections is therefore a major scientific challenge for an efficient implementation of integrated plant health management.

Objectives

MIR general objective is to develop the knowledge, methods and concepts allowing to sustainable manage multiple infections and pathogen complexes through the different methods offered by the host plant itself : genetic resistance, plant and crop architecture, induced defenses, associated crops.
The team project is therefore built around two main research areas : the ecology and dynamics of multi-infections (including their evolutionary consequences) on one hand, the characterisation and exploitation of multi-resistances ( defined as plant characteristics allowing to limit epidemic pest or pathogen development under multi-infections) on the other hand. Those two research areas are tightly interconnected by the analysis and management of the conditions and consequences of deploying multi-resistances within cropping systems.

Skills and expertise

MIR is currently the only IGEPP team assocoating competences in plant genetics (linkage and association genetics) and in plant pathology, plant disease epidemiology and parasite ecology. This unique combination allows MIR to develop strongly multidisciplinary research projects.

Furthermore, MIR includes about 10 colleagues from inov3PT, part of the Joint Technology Unit InnoPlant². This favours a fast and efficient exploitation of research results for practical applications.

Networks

MIR is active in a number of national and international networks : Bestim ( biostimulation and plant health), EuroBlight (sustainable management of potato late and early blights in Europe), etc…Some of the team members lead the French late blight Epidemiovigilance network.

Team leader Didier Andrivon Didier.Andrivon@inrae.fr